EDITORIAL

Keep up the Fight to Regain Democracy

The status quo for corruption won another battle on October 19
when Senate Republicans for the fourth straight year blocked a vote
on campaign finance reform. But 89-year-old Granny D is still out
there, walking 10 miles a day, trying to raise an army to win the
war.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, who led the GOP filibuster, and Majority
Leader Trent Lott were smug after supporters of campaign finance
reform gained majorities in two test votes but fell seven short of
the 60 needed to cut off the filibuster.

In a statement on her web site (www.grannyd.com) after the latest
sidelining of the relatively modest McCain-Feingold bill, which would
have eliminated the unregulated "soft money" transfers from
corporations to the political parties, Doris "Granny D" Haddock
applauded the efforts of Sens. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and John
McCain, R-Ariz. She also said she was encouraged that the majority of
senators voting for reform continues to grow. Eight Republicans
joined the 45 Democrats to call for a vote on the soft-money ban.

"The most important reforms are the hardest to win. But we always
win if we just keep going," she said. "At our current rate of
changing minds in the Senate, we will win in 2000 or in 2001," she
predicted. [See her letter on page 4.]

McCain said he and Feingold might try to add their bill as an
amendment to other legislation as Congress tries to wrap up its
business for the year. Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., also said he was
prepared to offer a "states' rights" amendment to allow states to
offer public financing to candidates for Congress who agree to limit
their spending. Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine and Arizona already
have adopted "Clean Money" plans setting up funds for candidates who
voluntarily limit their spending.

Drastic reform is needed because candidates for federal office and
the national parties are addicted to corporate money. They raised
$1.5 billion in the 1998 election cycle, with most of it coming from
corporations, their PACs and their executives. Small individual
donations (less than $200) amounted to just 17 percent of the total
contributions for winning U.S. House and Senate candidates, according
to the Center for Responsive Politics. Actual voters are close to
becoming irrelevant in big-time politics.

Robert McChesney, author of Rich Media, Poor Democracy:
Communications Politics in Dubious Times [University of
Illinois Press], noted that the Telecommunications Act in 1996 --
the first major rewriting of communications law in 62 years -- was
drawn virtually without public input. The bill, which relaxed
ownership limits on radio and TV stations, handed out more TV
broadcasting spectrum to existing licensees and cleared the way for
the concentration of media ownership by a few conglomerates, was
hashed out behind the scenes by corporate lobbyists.

The biggest giveaway was a clause that required the FCC to give
existing stations the new frequencies made available by the
development of digital TV -- free of charge. Bob Dole, then Senate
Majority Leader, protested that the spectrum giveaway was corporate
welfare and he would not it pass without substantial hearings,
McChesney noted. However, Dole was convinced to quit the Senate to
devote full time to his presidential campaign. The first act of new
Majority Leader Trent Lott was to make it known that the public
hearings would not be necessary. The spectrum, valued as much as $100
billion, was awarded to the existing stations.

How did this happen? The communications and electronics industry
invested heavily in congressional candidates, donating $23.7 million
in 1995-96, according to the Center for Responsive Politics That
investment surely will pay off countless times over in the next few
years.

But that is small change when compared with the $154.4 million
invested in Congress and the political parties by the financial
services, insurance and real estate industry in 1997-98, the Center
reported (see www.opensecrets.org). That largess floated the banking
deregulation bill that appears headed for final passage after
congressional negotiators reached agreement with the White House
recently. The bill would do away with Depression-era regulations,
clearing the way for a consolidation of banks, insurance companies
and securities brokerages into national and multinational financial
service conglomerates [see Wayne O'Leary's article, "Through a
Glass Steagall Darkly," on page 14 and Molly Ivins' column on page
22.]. Independent banks, insurance companies and securities
dealers likely will go the way of locally owned radio and TV
stations.

The real estate industry, which spent $37.8 million of that total,
pushed lawmakers to bar financial services companies and banks from
engaging in most real estate activities and also is interested in a
new bankruptcy bill that will come down harder on debtors. The
insurance industry, which spent $31.2 million, also has been heavily
involved in fighting health care reform, whch is why we that has been
bottled up in Congress.

Activists will be heading to Seattle at the end of November to
protest the encroachment of the World Trade Organization and "free
trade" as the ruling principle over national sovereignty. When it
comes to securing the rights of multinational corporations, President
Bill Clinton and Congress have acted in a bipartisan fashion to give
the corporations everything they demanded. But it will do no good for
pro-democracy activists to disrupt the WTO meeting if all the trade
ministers have to do is move the meeting to Singapore, or some other
authoritarian locale where the police can be relied upon to keep the
streets clear, next year.

We also must change the political climate that allows corruption
to flourish. "As long as election campaigns are privately financed,
big corporations and the rich will continue to control our democracy
just as they control our economy," said Ronnie Dugger, co-chairman of
the Alliance for Democracy, at an October 26 rally on the Capitol
steps, as he accused Congress of crimes against democracy. "Only
publicly financed campaigns will break their stranglehold," he
said.

Replacement of at least eight GOP senators will be needed to put
the fear of voters back into Congress and get them to pass campaign
finance reform. If we're going to that trouble, we might as well push
for public financing, which will let members of Congress stop renting
their votes to the corporations.

Among the 19 Republican seats up for election next year are those
given up by Connie Mack of Florida and the late John Chafee in Rhode
Island. Freshmen Republicans who are vulnerable include John Ashcroft
in Missouri, Spencer Abraham in Michigan, Mike DeWine of Ohio, Bill
Frist of Tennessee, Rod Grams of Minnesota and Rick Santorum in
Pennsylvania. Progressive challengers should be competitive against
Conrad Burns in Montana, Slade Gorton of Washington, James Jeffords
of Vermont, William Roth in Delaware and Olympia Snowe of Maine.
(Jeffords and Snowe supported the McCain-Feingold bill.) Orrin Hatch
of Utah, Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, John Kyl of Arizona, Trent
Lott of Mississippi, Richard Lugar of Indiana, and Craig Thomas of
Wyoming also are up for re-election and they deserve opponents who
will promote public financing.

Dugger of the Alliance for Democracy proposed that voters sign the
following "Voters' Pledge":

"I pledge that hereafter I will vote in every federal election
until we get our country back and that, regardless of political
party, I will count it heavily against any candidate for federal
office who fails to publicly endorse and, if in office, actively
support the principle of full public funding of all federal
elections."

Send the pledge, along with your name, date, address, phone number
and email address, if applicable, to the Alliance for Democracy, 681
Main St., Waltham MA 02451. The Alliance is coordinating what it
hopes will be a year-long series of public events to build a
groundswell of support for public funding. Also contact Public
Campaign, phone: 202-293-0222; (www.publicampaign.org) for more
information on public financing of campaigns.

The health not only of Main Street but also of our democracy may
depend upon our rising to the challenge. -- J.M.C.